Realism

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ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva@e...>

Wed Jul 9, 2003 7:53 pm

How I discovered the Awareness watching

Awareness method.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Sadananda wrote:- read my mail again - it starts

'since one sees ..' we are

bringing the causes to account what we see. And I also

used the

Upanishad quote ' maayantu prakRitim vidyaat' - know

that maaya is

prakRiti - and maaya is that which is not there but

appears to be there."

 

Interpreting what you say, correct me if I'm wrong -

'We are bringing the causes to account what we see.'

means we are accounting

for what we see in a causal way. Does that mean (a)

what we experience is the

result of the interaction between an object out there,

really out there and our

particular make up (without perceptual infra-red/ultra-

violet) or

(b) (and this moves closer to Benjamin) the object is

something that we infer

as the cause of our experience. One could say that the

object has migrated

from the mind to some space in between.

 

Perhaps this is all a bit subtle. In any case it would

be informative to

detail where in the thought of Sankara, in B.S.B. or

Upadesa Sahasri which I

have in English it is so I could study this for myself.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

 

To which I add,

Namaste Sri Sadananda,

 

As I thought might be the case: 'no answer was the

stern reply'. There was a slight trick to that

question in that I did not really expect you to come up

with chapter and verse on where that theory of

perception might be found in Sankara (or in Vedanta

Paribhasa for that matter). I don't think it's there

because it does not represent advaitic theory. So if

it's not Advaita what is it?

 

It could be that theory which is known as

representative realism which is famously associated

with Locke. As a scientist you would have

unconsciously extracted its rationale from the working

hypotheses of the scientific method. Says Britannica

"It is also sometimes called the scientific theory

because it seems to be supported by findings in optics

and physics. By the way Britannica is an excellent and

clear guide to fundamental issues such as Realism and

Idealism.

 

Essentially the core idea is that the external object

is an inference from sense-data. "What one is

apprehending in such a case is a mental representation

(sense-datum) of the original object; and, through

various processes in the brain, this representation

gives human beings the depiction of the object as it

is." (Vol.18 pg.487,1a Epistemology)

 

This is where Benjamin is correct in claiming you as an

ally, because you won't ever know whether this sense

data corresponds to the reality and thus you are still

within the world of appearance epistemologically

speaking(the knowing side). This is not the same as

Maya which is an ontological theory which is about the

whole of reality and not particularly about this or

that theory of perception. Perceptual error is used as

an analogy of avidya and to introduce the concept of

substratum etc. However that is a whole separate

issue.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.